254 



ZOOLOGY. 



[PART IT. 



so firm in their texture that the weight of a horse makes 

 no apparent indentation on their solidity ; and even the 

 intense rains of the monsoon, which no cement or mortar 

 can long resist, fail to penetrate the surface or substance 

 of an ant hill. 1 In their earlier stages the termites 

 proceed with such energetic rapidity, that I have seen a 

 pinnacle of moist clay, six inches in height and twice as 

 large in diameter, constructed underneath a table between 

 sitting down to dinner and the removal of the cloth. 



As these lofty mounds of earth have all been carried 

 up from beneath the surface, a cave of corresponding 

 dimensions is necessarily scooped out below, and here, 

 under the multitude of miniature cupolas and pinnacles 

 which canopy it above, the termites hollow out the royal 

 chamber for their queen, with spacious nurseries sur- 

 rounding it on all sides. Store-rooms and magazines 

 occupy the lower apartments, and all are connected by 

 arched galleries, long passages, and doorways of the 

 most intricate and elaborate construction. In the 

 centre and underneath the spacious dome is the recess 

 for the queen a hideous creature, with the head and 

 thorax of an ordinary termite, but a body swollen to a 

 hundred times its usual and proportionate bulk, and 

 presenting the appearance of a mass of shapeless pulp. 

 From this great progenitrix proceed the myriads that 

 people the subterranean hive, consisting, like the com- 



1 Dr. HOOKER, in his Himalayan 

 Journal (vol. i. p. 20) is of opinion 

 that the nests of the termites are not 

 independent structures, but that their 

 nucleus is " the debris of clumps of 

 bamboos or the trunks of large trees 

 which these insects have destroyed." 

 He supposes that the dead tree falls 

 leaving the stump coated with sand, 

 ivhich the action of the weather soon 

 fashions into a cone. But indepen- 

 dently of the fact that the " action of 

 the weather " produces little or no 



effect on the closely cemented clay of 

 the white ants' nest, they may be 

 daily seen constructing their edih'ces 

 in the very form of a cone, which 

 they ever after retain. Besides which, 

 they appear in the midst of terraces 

 and fields where no trees are to be 

 seen ; and Dr. Hooker seems to over- 

 look the fact that the termites rarely 

 attack a living tree ; and although 

 their nests may be built against one, 

 it continues to flourish not the less 

 for their presence. 



